grantmoore3d

Ok, I know there are lots of webpages on this subject, but I just want to make sure of things first before I get doing it. Cause Im fairly new at doing dual booting. What I want to do is install windows xp on one partition and linux on the other partition. I have downloaded both mandrake 9.0 and red hat 8.0, and I want to install either one on the second partition cause I want to try linux out and see what it's like. I am going to do a clean install of both OS's, so what steps should I do to make a dual boot of both XP and linux. Plus give your opinion which version of linux would be easier to do this with, as I don't care which one I am going to use, though I would be leaning a little towards mandrake. Thanks in advance...... By the way (I am very new at linux eg: I have seen someone use it for about 10 mins about 4 years ago } so be nice

Ok thanks for the responses, Ill probably go with RH8 if mandrake is having problems with USB stuff. As for the dual booting, I have read that Windows XP should be installed first just like you have said. My final question is when installing XP can I use NTFS file system or do I have to use FAT32 to be able to install Linux on the second partition, or will it matter. Also, if I can use NTFS, I am guessing that Linux will be unable to read any of the files on that partition, am I correct?